


Enemy Engagement

by Chumpersonable



Category: Ranma 1/2
Genre: Gen, well this is going to be stupid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29850561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chumpersonable/pseuds/Chumpersonable
Summary: Early on in his training journey with his infant son, Genma Saotome finds himself agreeing to marry off Ranma in return for food.No, not to THAT guy...
Kudos: 14





	Enemy Engagement

**Author's Note:**

> This was a very silly idea I've been kicking around for a while, and I've finally begun putting proverbial pen to digital paper!

Sand.

Nothing but sand.

Sand as far as the eye could- well, okay. There was water.

Salt water. The ocean.

Nothing but sand and sea as far as the- well and the trees, as well. If you could call them trees. Nasty things, dropping fruits as big and hard as bowling balls and with fronds like razors.

So, to reiterate: Nothing but sand, sea, and palm trees as far as the eye could see.

Listen, Genma Saotome was delirious with starvation and thirst. His internal monologue was not going to be the most consistent.

He was making his way through the South Pacific, intent on training his son in the Saotome family school of Anything Goes Martial Arts. Said son, Ranma, was currently strapped to his back, enjoying the soft warmth of the sun on his face. Genma had cracked his teeth on coconuts to feed his boy the milk inside and made his gums bleed gnawing at the cores of pineapples after giving Ranma the more properly edible bits. One could make the argument that it was perhaps foolish to bring an infant on a training journey around the world, but Genma knew that it was best to start training young.

And by god, Ranma would be the  _ best. _

Still, as he took his protective head covering off to wipe his forehead (freeing what thinning hair he had left to make a half-hearted attempt of drying off in the sun) he couldn’t help but feel he had made a mistake. He was already reduced to crawling along, knees of his gi wearing away in the grit of the coarse sand, back of his neck rapidly burning in the tropical rays. He’d do just about  _ anything  _ for some food.

In fact, he had to be going mad, because he could swear he smelled something cooking.

Something  _ delicious. _

_ Meat. _

Finding a strength he didn’t know he yet possessed, he crested a small dune to find smoke rising from a cooking fire surrounded by fish on skewers, their skin just beginning to flake and turn golden brown. The aroma wafting his way mixed with the salt air in his nostrils to collectively reach directly into his limbic system and jerk his whole body to attention. Mouth spending water it could ill afford on saliva, he made the herculean effort of getting to his feet and stumbling over to the camp, eying the fish greedily. Genma looked around for whoever had been tending the fire (to ask if they could spare anything to eat, of course). When a cursory glance revealed nothing, he decided to immediately resort to tenet #19 of the Saotome school of Anything Goes Martial Arts:

Finders keepers.

Grabbing hungrily at the fish that looked the most done, he closed his eyes to enjoy one final sniff before he bit down…

...on air. Groaning at the impact of teeth on teeth, he opened his eyes again to come face to face with an eye-searingly lurid outfit, lime green pants and a bright teal shirt with a single red rose in the center. He could also see his beloved fish, being held in a large, tanned hand. Panning his view up the figure in front of him he saw a lei made of yellow flowers draped across his broad chest and a pair of sunglasses resting above an unnervingly large grin on his bronzed and prematurely wrinkled face. Topping off the ludicrous image of the man in front of him was a topknot styled to look like one of Genma’s hated palm trees.

And this man had swiped Genma’s stolen fish.

“Well  _ aloha  _ there, me starving friend!” The strange man said, grin never leaving his lips. “Seems you be tryin’ to steal me hard-caught fishies here!”

“Uuhhh-”

“Ah, ah ah!” The man chided, as one might a pupil speaking out of turn. “I don’t remember asking for an explanation!” He leaned down, waving the fish in front of Genma’s face. “Now, you want this tasty little fishy here?”

Genma nodded, drooling and following the fish with his eyes as if being hypnotized.

_ “Weeelllllll  _ then, the question is…” A sudden, threatening glare shone across his sunglasses as he angled his head up slightly to properly look down at the man he was withholding food from.  _ “What are you willing to give ME, cousin?” _

Genma gulped. He had nothing to offer. Nothing but the clothes on his back and-

And…

“You, ah, wouldn’t happen to have a  _ daughter,  _ would you?” When the tanned man raised an eyebrow at this, Genma quickly swung around the sling he was carrying Ranma in. “I only ask because, well… My son, Ranma, is going to be a great martial artist someday, and I want nothing more than for him to carry on the family name and school.”

The man’s grin became, somehow, even wider. “As it happens, I have a lovely daughter waiting for me back home! My little Kochi was just born a few months ago,” he leaned in close at this point, and despite not being able to see his eyes Genma could feel the intensity of his gaze behind the tinted lenses. “...And I just  _ know  _ she’ll make a lovely bride someday.”

Genma gulped once more, not an easy feat given the dryness of his throat. He couldn’t sign away his only son for a meal, could he? And there was that promise he had made Soun all those years ago…

A grumble that sounded like his own stomach trying to eat itself brought him back to reality. It had to be done.

“Very well.” He offered his hand to the stranger. “My name is Genma Saotome, and when the time comes, my Ranma will marry your daughter.”

_ “Eeeeexcellent!”  _ exclaimed the strange man, taking Genma’s hand and shaking it warmly. “You can call me Kuno.  _ Just  _ Kuno. And when the time comes, my daughter Kodachi will marry your son.”

Shaking Kuno’s hand while using the other to cram an entire fish into his mouth, Genma nodded in agreement. Naturally, he had no intention of ever seeing this weirdo ever again. If he wanted Ranma to marry his daughter so bad then he could have fun tracking them down, wherever they wound up.

  
And really, who had  _ those  _ kinds of resources?


End file.
